Chapter 47
forty-seven
. . .
WHITNEY
With my legs locked around his waist, Connor carries me into the shower like it’s nothing. By the time he sets me under the spray, I’m all warm limbs and loose bones, too blissed out to do much more than lean into him.
The water is hot, steam curling around us almost instantly.
Connor’s hands stay on me, steady and careful, washing me like he’s in no hurry at all.
He works shampoo through my hair, rinses it out with one hand shielding my face, then smooths soap over my skin with the same quiet focus he does everything else.
It should feel practical.
It doesn’t.
What should feel practical somehow turns into aftercare and tenderness. Into Connor taking care of me even after he’s already made me come apart.
It’s not only that my body still feels boneless, it’s that every small movement keeps reminding me exactly how we ended up here—Connor’s bare cock spiling deep inside me, and now a slick warmth sliding down my inner thighs making my face go hot all over again.
His gaze drops there. A rough little gleam of satisfaction flashes across his face before he smooths his hand over my hip and back down, steadying me under the spray.
“Next time, I want to see my cum leaking out of you and I want to clean you up with my mouth.”
That shouldn’t be as hot as it is.
“You can’t say things like that right now. I’m barely standing as it is.”
He kisses the corner of my mouth, then continues washing me.
And maybe that shouldn’t hit me harder than the fact that ten minutes ago he had my wrists bound with a controller cord and was looking at me like my trust in him was the hottest thing he’d ever seen, but apparently that is where I’m at now.
Because that’s the thing still echoing under my skin.
It’s not just the sex, or the whole mildly unhinged and deeply effective revelation that I like being tied up if Connor is the one doing it.
It’s the way he handled it. The way he paid attention to every shift in my face, every breath, every tiny reaction.
The way he made something that could have felt exposing feel safe instead. Wanted, even.
That does dangerous things to a girl’s emotional stability.
Something in my chest goes soft at that. Softer in a way that feels suspiciously close to a feeling I’m not prepared to name while naked in a hotel shower after letting Connor ruin me on the couch.
I tilt my head back while he rinses my hair, then turn into him when he’s done, letting my hands settle against his chest. Water beads and runs over his skin, over the hard lines of him, over the tattoos I already know well enough to recognize by touch.
My favorite is the sailboat on his left ribs.
It always has been.
I let my fingers drift over it absently, tracing the outline of the boat the way I’ve done before, more than once, because I like the clean lines of it and the place it sits on his body and maybe because touching him there always feels a little more intimate than I can explain.
He’s still rinsing soap from my shoulder when my fingers move lower, over the two lines beneath the boat.
I trace them once. Then again.
My breath catches, and my fingers still. It hits me. Those aren’t waves.
For a second, I just stare, my fingertips resting against his ribs as the shape rearranges itself in my mind. It’s like one of those optical illusion paintings where you only see one thing until the image shifts and suddenly the hidden picture is all you can see.
S. G.
I’ve seen this tattoo before, touched it and explored it. But now I’m seeing it clearly, and what I always thought were stylized waves beneath the sailboat are actually letters.
S. G.
Does that mean what I think it does?
SailorGirl.
My throat tightens.
Because it’s not just a sailboat. It’s me.
I trace the letters again, slower this time, their meaning hitting so hard it leaves me almost dizzy.
“Connor,” I whisper.
He stills immediately. “What?”
I trace the lines again, just to be sure I’m not imagining it. My pulse kicks hard as I lift my eyes to his.
“Those aren’t waves.”
He goes quiet.
For one second, all I hear is the shower running between us. His hands stay on me, but they don’t move. And when I look at his face, whatever I’m expecting to find—confusion, maybe, or denial—isn’t there. He just looks caught.
“Connor.”
His mouth twitches like he’s thinking about making a joke out of it. Then he exhales, low and resigned.
“No,” he says quietly. “They’re not.”
I stare at him, then back at the tattoo. Then at him again.
“S. G.,” I say, because apparently I need to hear it out loud to believe I’m not hallucinating in a post-orgasm steam cloud. “SailorGirl?”
Connor’s jaw shifts.
The look on his face is answer enough, but after a second he nods anyway. Once. Barely.
My chest tightens so fast it almost hurts. The kind that squeezes emotion upward so fast it has nowhere to go but my eyes.
“You’ve had this forever,” I say, the realization hitting in pieces now. “Since I got to Coral Cove. Since before…” I trail off, because I don’t even know how to finish that sentence without it catching somewhere tender.
Connor looks like he knows exactly where my head just went.
“Whit.”
“No, Connor.” I shake my head, still tracing the letters like if I stop touching them this might somehow stop being real. “You got this after you ghosted me?”
He exhales through his nose, low and quiet.
“Yeah.”
That one word wrecks me more than a whole speech would have.
After.
After he didn’t show.
After he stopped logging on.
After whatever the hell he told himself he was doing by keeping his distance.
He still put me on his skin.
My throat goes tight. “Why?”
For a second, I think he might dodge the impact of it.
He doesn’t.
His hand comes up, settling warm at the back of my neck. “Because I needed some version of you with me when I couldn’t have the real thing.”
The words hit me low and hard.
I laugh once, but it comes out shaky. “That is a deeply insane answer.”
A small smile pulls at his mouth. “You asked.”
I look back down at the tattoo, at the little sailboat I’ve always loved, at the letters hidden in plain sight underneath it, and something in me shifts so completely it feels almost physical.
All this time, I thought I was the only one carrying the old ache of us around, but apparently not.
My fingers move over the S. G. one more time, gentler now.
“You know you have me now, right?”
At that, something shifts in his face—small, but enough.
“Yeah,” he says quietly. “I know.”